


Black Butterfly

by thisismidnight



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood and Gore, Dark, Dark Fantasy, I don’t know why I wrote this, Other, POV Experimental, Psychological Horror, Surreal, Unreliable Narrator, just plain weird
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 16:47:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18595390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisismidnight/pseuds/thisismidnight
Summary: It was then an epiphany dawned Papillon: he wasn't just “dead”, he was thrown away like a rag doll. In the void, there was two common rules everyone learned to accept: you couldn't die, you couldn't escape. Those who attempt to runaway are never seen again.Until a mysterious boy came and another revelation unfold—the void is merely a wave in an ocean filled with monsters lurking anywhere.





	1. Song of Death

**Author's Note:**

> This an experimental piece which follows a irregular narrative. The writing style will probably shift each chapter and the contents in the story are a mixture of whimsical and grim. It's heavily character driven, so if you expect much of a plot (or prefer plot driven stories) then this book might not be for you.

❝As his end arrived꞉ God put a full-stop.❞

▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂

0\. the bitter epiphany

The boy, named Papillon, had lost his wings like a fallen angel. 

As he plummeted deeper and deeper, he parted his mouth, yet with no scream emitted from his lungs, only the unstable battle for oxygen. However, there was none, and somewhow, he didn't need it either.

He fell on top of a pile of bodies, living bodies, before he slid down and staggered to his feet. Papillon scanned around his surroundings and saw only people crouched, sitting or weeping in darkness. There was no light, only night.

Was this a nightmare? It must be. It must be. He ran, his legs swaying with each colossal stride, scouring left and right for some loophole or buying time so he could return to reality. Something. Anything.

As he sprinted, feeling no heat as he excercised his muscles only the cold that chilled his bones and blood, a man stood before him. Papillon inched closer then froze, his eyes wide and dark with terror.

That was no man.

The creature's lower body—from it's neck to its feet—resembled a man built; sturdy, muscular and broad, embellished in a black tuxedo and trousers with a scarlet tie and polished pointed shoes. It had the head of a goat loosely attached to its neck and distorted horns and black, fleshy fur drizzled in blood.

The air, suddenly, became heavier and tighter, pressing against his limbs and muscles. His bowels tightened, twisting in irregular rhythms. This must be a dream. Yes, it is. It is. 

"This no dream," it said, it's head bobbing. "Now, go back to the your zone."

Liar.

"I don't tell lies, I either speak the truth or speak nothing at all."

His face grew ashen as his muscles stiffened. It knows, it knows, how did it...

"I am Épine—the emperor of the void, and you are the broken toys, that's how I know." His yellow eyes burned into his soul. "Now, go back. Don't step beyond this territory."

Papillon turned and sprinted away, somewhere far away.

This must be a nightmare, right? No, it felt all too real.

▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂

i. the tale of worth

In a realm far, far away, somewhere in the darkness, a thousand men and women screamed.

Papillon remembered the first time he heard it, watching as grown men and chubby boys; parasitic women and chaste girls scrambled for an escape—for heaven like the flock of sheep they were.

He remembered their eyes wide with horror, their mouth rigid and agape as they bare their nails and clawed against something, maybe a wall or ladder—did they still have those thing here? He didn't know. He didn't want to remember—fruitlessly.

He remembered hearing something which sounded like a baby weeping in the distance, and then he followed the cries until he found it. Yes, it was an it; not a he or she, just a clump of cells curled up in a ball with a shrivelled umbilical cord wrapped around its raw, boney frame.

He didn't recall what exactly followed afterwards, only that he strangled the foetus until it stopped screeching and kicking it's limbs in a tiny jagged motion until it froze. He was glad he'd stopped it from crying. In the distance, the lost lambs continued to scream and claw until they realised this was the void.

Papillion kept it with him since then.

Sometimes, he fed the foetus—which he now named Noir—bread crumbs while he cradled its squirming body, rocking it to their cries. A part of him had been haunted by the sight; a part of him wished they have all died.

At that moment, the goat man always reminded him—you practically have. 

▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂

ii. an ode to death

Once upon a time, he'd thought—the Papillon who used to have friends and a family; the Papillon who used to grin like the sun—that death was the end. It was the tide which swallowed the sinners and saints. However, death was merely ripple in ocean, it didn't all end with onslaught of hungry waves devouring everything and anything. In fact, there was no conclusion but only the ruination that came once the disaster befallen.

This was death, Papi realised. After months and months he spent feeding Noir, watching it remain as a clump of cells and himself remain as a fifteen years old boy. It wasn't an eternal slumber that came after the storm nor was it the castrophe itself; but the debris, famine and loneliness which remained afterwards. So, was this why Noir still wept no matter how much he tried to silence it? Or was it the pain which flared with every attempt?

Was there still sorrow and pain even in death?

Papillon felt empty and cold. So, so cold. If it weren't for his memories that still lingered and the goat man—no, we don't talk about it—he wouldn't have understand these concepts: death, pain, fear and sorrow. Yet, even then, they all feel alien to him. Like how you know a fire burned without experiencing your flesh sizzling as flames engulfed your body. He knew but couldn't feel.

Does Noir feel the otherwise? No, it was just as cold as him with its eyes as pitiless as an abyss.

He fed Noir who rested in his arm as still as a doll, mouth agape, some breadcrumbs before he wondered whether a thousand more will come to the nothingness or a thousand more will try leave.

In here, nothing really changed. 

▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂

iii. the wheel of despair

Nothing ever changed.

Everyday—was there still days here? Was there still time? Everything bled seemlessly together, he didn't know whether morning and night even exist. All he perceived was darkness—the vacuum vomitted out a thousand people, plummeting down to the surface like stringless puppets: unneeded and abandoned, before the mouth clamped shut.

"Everyday" this place remained dark and only dark. Yet, nothing was difficult to see. "Everyday" the people claw uselessly for an escape or succumb to their fate. "Everyday" people divided into groups to survive through the mental strain while some gave up and he never saw them again.

"Everyday" he fed Noir breadcrumbs or milk, not out of survival but out of a peculiar fixation with reliving a memory he cannot remember. "Everyday" he cradled it and sang classic lullabies, twisting them to what felt right.

"Everyday" he slipped into a peaceful daze before his eyes pry open and then the wheel spun once again.

Perhaps, this was what the afterlife was. A wheel which could never be broken or divert direction, everything moved yet it moved in the same pattern. 

No matter how much they try rebuild what the tide had destroy, it will always return bigger, wider and stronger, destroying everything. Again and again. Now, his life was wheel and Papillon wasn't sure he could spent periods dealing with that without slowly losing himself—he didn't want to think about that.

For now, Papillon rocked the foetus to and fro, clinging on to the fraying string of hope.


	2. Song Of Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> P.s Kinda gorey

It wasn't much different when he came. Not yet. The wheel of despair hadn't stopped; it continued—spinning, spinning, spinning.

(You get the point by now, right? It spun and spun.)

Another myriads of people fell from above, piling up amongst one another like a mountain of dead bodies left to waste—correction: they were a mountain of dead bodies left to waste—before the vacuum clamped shut with a bang.

For a moment, a brief pause, Papillon heard harsh breathing, incoherent mumbles, the voices filled with confusion. Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it—

A blood-curling screech fractured the silence-chaos ensued.

The thumping of feet scampering around filled the air, then the fingernails clawing, grading against any surface for support if it meant escape. Some merely struggled under foreign weight in attempt to be free and runaway. In ten minutes or so, they would either give up, search for another route or sit in the darkness, reminiscing about the past.

Perhaps a few here might attempt suicide, but that would only happen if they found a weapon or remembered they had one with them. The latter was more common. Papillon glanced over at Noir. "Are you tired?"

However, it said nothing, only breathing gently in response.

Its probably already asleep. He held it tightly to his chest and caressed its bald head, humming a lullaby at its pink face. At times, he wondered why Noir was sent to the void. Did its mother despised it so much? Papillon brushed the thought, relieved that at least now he had something to make him feel occupied and human.

The screams dissipated.

That ended earlier than anticipated.

Papillon raised his head, expecting to see a group of people searching for an escape route and another group resigning to their cruel fate. Instead, the void dropped to an aberrantly cold temperature. Everyone stood in standstill. Frozen. All he saw was the back of heads as they huddled around, gawking at something.

Papillon drew a step close, slipping through the blank-faced bystanders until his gaze landed upon a boy. Tall, pale looking boy with eyes and hair as dark as a secret. He held a machete. As Papi went on his tiptoes, peering over shoulders of strangers—the boy pointed the blade at a woman. Against her throat.

She gazed up at him with tears glossing her eyes as she clung to him, digging her fingernails into the hem of his blazer with shaky hands. "P-please, let's not do this."

"I'll say it again, ma'am—what are you?" His facial muscles were loose and stiff. There was no disgust, no sympathy or cruel mirth in his eyes—only boredom as though he was watching one of those crappy soap operas on the TV. From the past world.

Tears dripped down her chin. "Please, drop the kni—"

"Say it." He wedged the mouth of blade against her throat.

She lowered her gaze. The air turned so brittle it could snap, and if it didn't, one of them would. It only about time something went wrong. Yet everything was still, utterly still. No words were exchanged, only stares. The boy tightened his grip, nudging the tip deeper. "Death it is."

Before he drove the machete into her tissues, she grabbed the blade, crushing it in between her bare hands. The machete shattered as the pieces of metal clattered to the ground, one by one. Droplets of dark blue flowed through the gaps between her knuckles as the hot fluid dripped, splashing into a puddle.

She wobbled to her feet, her limbs dangling.

"I guess there's no point in hiding it anymore."

Her locks of hair shedded in a freakish rate before she became completely bald. A pair of antlers tore through her mottled layer of flesh, protruding out her scalp. Brown patches of dead skin had slid off the bones over most of her body.

The sickening cracking and popping of contracting and elongating limbs filled the silence. The skin over her arm stretched; her fingernails extended into grosteque talon and her eyeballs bulged out of her sockets, turning her irises and whites in her eye to the colour of vomit.

Quiet drowned the void. And above the ocean of silence, the mysterious boy stood before the beast with a dagger in hand and expressionless look on his face. Is he blind? Papillon stared, wide-eyed. 

He couldn't move his limbs, he realised as he watched the woman legs extended, towering above everyone and everything. Those pair of yellow eyes glowed like miniature suns as she stared down the mysterious boy, growling.

She—no, it swung it's massive claws at the boy, aimlessly, trying to chop his head. He dodged—in a motion so brief and so inhumanly fast, Papi barely catch a glimpse of it before the creature attacked him. This time it didn't miss—it chopped of a woman's head.

An uproar of agonised scream surrounded him as strips of scarlet splattered on his clothes. She slashed, unfocused, scattering limbs and chunks of there bodies in many directions. A mist of blood hung in the air, such that he could taste its iron on his lips. They shouldn't be dead. This was void. This was nothingness. This was death. Maybe, they'll be resurrected. Maybe they’ll—

—another head rolled on the floor. Another human dead. 

Papi stood amidst destruction of it all: his face waxen, his body drenched in blood and his knees knocking together. The smell of rotting flesh surged through his nostrils, making his stomach contract and bile fill his throat. He collapsed to his feet. Shaking, clinging to the foetus. 

I can't, I can't, I can't—

—Noir stirred as it eyes fluttered open. He glanced down at the foetus, noticing it's face was scrunched-up and flushed pink—it was about to cry. In an array of panic, he rocked the foetus and stroked the patch of hair as he sung the lullaby he'd heard from the past world in a low guttural tone. Regardless, Noir burst into tears: it's face was blotched and little mouth stretched wide as the shrilled cries filled the air. 

Papi's shoulders slumped. This is the end. The monster rotated its head towards the crying child, staring down at them. And when they locked eyes, Papillon understood what true terror felt like. He clung tighter to Noir, letting his eyes droop shut. 

A shriek. 

He opened his eyes. The antler smacked against the hard surface, rolling towards his knees. He raised his head and the mysterious boy standing before him.


End file.
